


as ordinary things often do

by lymricks



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, Post S3, but a lil angsty to start, this is shameless fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 06:56:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21295388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lymricks/pseuds/lymricks
Summary: “I left the number for the family we’re staying with in California if you have any problems, but of course, you know he doesn’t--do much,” she says, and the ending is almost careful, but not particularly thoughtful, “So if you need anything, you should call, we just couldn’t bring him, you understand, and I think it’s important that Max get a break after everything, and we justcouldn’tbringhim, you know, and--”She’s still talking, but what she’s actually doing is walking down the crumbling steps, climbing into the passenger’s side of the truck, slamming the door shut, driving away, and--And Max is yelling out the window, “She means like,two weeks--” before they’re turning around the corner and--And Steve is standing on the front steps of Billy Hargrove’s house, keys jingling in his palm, thinkingwhat the fuck?
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 50
Kudos: 1000
Collections: Harringrove for RAICES





	as ordinary things often do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohmybgosh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmybgosh/gifts).

It’s August, and Hawkins is miserable, Indiana is miserable, maybe the whole fucking country is miserable, and Steve is standing in the sunroom, framed against a puckered street and great, green trees that don’t sway or move, because there isn’t a breeze. He stares at the door, at the three little windows, and adjusts the bag on his shoulder. He already knows how this will go.

Step one: he will knock on the door, at least three times, because in this house, people still aren’t used to Billy not answering the door.

Step two: someone will answer; sometimes it’s a flighty, nervous woman who Steve has come to know is Susan and sometimes it is a gruff, suspicious man who Steve has come to know as Neil. It is almost never Max. Steve isn’t sure if that’s because of Billy or because of him.

Step three: Whoever answers the door will say some variation of, “You again? All right. Go ahead and try - waste your time. I don’t care.” Privately, Steve thinks this sort of reaction is the crux of the problem. 

Step four: He will make it over the threshold of the door and whoever answered will go back to the kitchen or the living room or the back porch, wherever they’re trying to find relief from the heat. This place doesn’t have air conditioning. Steve wonders, sometimes, if they’ve all boiled alive, if he’s just interfacing with ghosts.

The process stops at step four. He ever gets farther than Billy’s bedroom door, which remains locked. Billy never answers him, except once, the first time, when his voice was raspy with sleep and healing, maybe, when he said _go the fuck away, Harrington, I don’t want to fucking see you_ and that was--that was kind of _that_.

Except Steve keeps coming back. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do. He and Robin don’t have new jobs yet, although she needs the money and has taken on some babysitting gigs. He doesn’t need the money. He’d never ask for money to watch the kids, who really don’t need a babysitter anymore. If anything, working at the mall, being there _that night_, has gotten his dad all the way off his back.

Sometimes, Steve thinks that he’d like to go back to school, or start school, or whatever. _Back to school_ sounds heavier, weightier, but he also doesn’t know what he’d do while he was there.

He’d never had _plans_ beyond _marry Nancy get a job_ and now he’s saved the world _three times_, or at least played a role in it, and it makes him think he _should_ have plans. He’d realized that too late in high school, but the crux of it is this feeling that maybe he’s worth more than what everyone has always expected of him.

What they used to expect of him, anyway. They don’t expect much of him anymore. Once his dad had found that convoluted essay draft that Nancy sort of helped him revise? Everyone really lowered their expectations.

Steve would like to believe they all thought that Scoops Ahoy was temporary, but sometimes when his dad looks at him, when he thinks Steve doesn’t see him, he sighs and shakes his head just enough that Steve’s starting to wonder if maybe he’s calling around, trying to see if anyone has any openings at their ice cream chain, because it’s what his son is meant to do.

So Steve should have plans. That’s the only conclusion that he can draw from all of this, but he doesn’t have plans beyond steps one through four, so.

Step one: he knocks. 

Step two: the flighty, nervous woman--Susan--answers.

Step three: she says, “Oh thank god, we weren’t sure what we were going to do with him if you didn’t stop by. You’re all right to stay a few days? I’ve left cash on the counter, here are the keys, help yourself to anything you need, really, _Max_! _Neil_! He’s here!”

Step four--

Wait, _what_?

But Steve doesn’t have a chance to ask, because one second Susan is saying things like _stay for a few days_ and the next second Max is running past him, a bag on her shoulder, and then the gruff one, Neil, who doesn’t speak to him is walking around him, a suitcase in his hand, another bag on his shoulder, and then Susan steps around him, too, and Steve is still trying to figure out what’s going on, but.

“I left the number for the family we’re staying with in California if you have any problems, but of course, you know he doesn’t--do much,” she says, and the ending is almost careful, but not particularly thoughtful, “So if you need anything, you should call, we just couldn’t bring him, you understand, and I think it’s important that Max get a break after everything, and we just _couldn’t_ bring _him_, you know, and--”

She’s still talking, but what she’s actually doing is walking down the crumbling steps, climbing into the passenger’s side of the truck, slamming the door shut, driving away, and--

And Max is yelling out the window, “She means like, _two weeks_\--” before they’re turning around the corner and--

And Steve is standing on the front steps of Billy Hargrove’s house, keys jingling in his palm, thinking _what the fuck_? 

There is a four step process to this, and Billy Hargrove has never once let Steve into the room, so now he’s supposed to what--babysit _Billy_ for two weeks? There’s _cash_ on the counter? He’s being _paid_ to babysit _Billy_?

What the _fuck_?

~

Two hours later, when Billy still hasn’t let Steve into the room, or even acknowledged he’s there, Steve thinks this might be the cushiest babysitting gig he’s ever had. He did the whole _paid to babysit_ thing when he was younger, and the Livingston’s kids were _true_ brats, and he cancelled a few times too many, apparently, and then was never asked back, so, like, _whatever_, but Billy is nothing like the Livingston brats. He doesn’t pull on Steve’s pants and ask forty thousand questions, he doesn’t want help with his reading homework.

He stays quietly in his room and leaves Steve the fuck alone.

So even though the house is _boiling_, even though it’s too goddamn hot, even though the August air is thick and humid and _still_, this feels like a pretty cushy gig. It isn’t like Steve had a whole lot of _other_ shit he was planning on doing _anyway_, so.

He sits on the couch and watches bad TV and helps himself to a few of the beers in the fridge. He imagines he’ll need to replace those before he leaves, but it’s not like that’ll be hard. He shrugs his t-shirt off, sprawls his legs out, and wonders if he should go and get his shit _now_, if he’s supposed to stay with Billy, or if he should go and get his shit _later_.

It’s just starting to get around sunset when Steve wonders if maybe Billy’s _dead_.

Like, maybe Billy’s dead, and the entire Hargrove family is going to _blame him_ when maybe he’s been dead this whole time, and that’s why Max wouldn’t look at him, really, because she knows they’re going to put Steve up as some kind of _patsy_ for his negligent homicide, or whatever. Steve’s not even sure that’s a real word? But he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to be _framed_ for Billy’s _murder_, especially if he’s been dead for _weeks_, or whatever.

He’s never really heard Billy say anything, beyond the first time he tried to stop by and see how Billy was doing. He only kept coming back because--he felt guilty, maybe? For not figuring out what was wrong?

Maybe he’d killed him, that first time?

Shit.

Steve gets up and makes his way into the hallway. He walks down the hallway with purpose. He bangs on Billy’s bedroom door. “Billy!” he shouts, banging, banging, banging. He tries the knob, but it’s locked. Billy doesn’t answer. Steve’s heart beats a little faster and he bangs in time to it, shouting, “Billy!” as he does. Minutes pass. There is only silence, except for the blood rushing in Steve’s ears, except for the sound of his hand banging on the door. 

“Billy, what the _fuck_!” Steve shouts. “Are you dead? I swear to _fucking_ god, if I get framed for _negligent homicide_\--I swear to _god_. Listen, I’m gonna break down the door, so if you’re _not_ dead--”

“Leave me _alone_!”

The yell is so loud, so vicious, so--guttural? Is _that_ a word?--that Steve feels it in his chest, like it’s a monster answering, and not Billy. Steve actually takes several steps back from the door. His back hits the wall of the hallway. He doesn’t say anything, for a while, but neither does Billy.

He’s not dead, at least. So that’s good.

Eventually, Steve turns around and heads back toward the television. When it gets dark enough, late enough, Steve curls up on the couch to fall asleep. It’s a little gross, but he can’t imagine sleeping in _Max’s_ bed or, like, Billy’s _dad’s_ bed, and they don’t seem to have a guest room, so he sleeps on the couch.

He wakes up, as he usually does, because he had a bad dream. He keeps his eyes closed tightly, takes a moment to get his breathing under control, and when he opens his eyes, Billy Hargrove is looming over him.

Steve will _never_ admit to the sound he makes as he scrambles back so hard and so fast that he knocks a half-finished beer off the coffee table and it spills all over the floor. “What the _fuck_, man?” Steve shouts, already on his feet, now, ready to look for a paper towel, or something.

Billy looks back at him.

Steve stops moving.

It’s dark in the living room, but he hasn’t actually seen Billy since that night, when he was on his back on the floor of the mall, awash in purple and blue and pink--all the synthetic colors of the light--and covered in black goo that was, honestly, actually, his blood. Steve hasn’t _seen_ him, and it’s--jarring.

Billy’s in a wife-beater, which should maybe be soothing, because some shit doesn’t change, apparently, but not jeans, which is what he paired it with the last time Steve saw him. He’s in grey sweatpants. He looks--thinner, than Steve remembers. He doesn't’t look as strong as he used to. His eyes are still kind of wide, like they had been behind the wheel of his car, when Steve had known he was hitting a monster to stop him from killing someone Steve loves, but he’d seen Billy, there, too. In his eyes.

It’s the scarring, though, that Steve zeroes in on. He can’t _really_ see most of it, because it’s under the shirt, but there’s a little--just enough--that creeps up under Billy’s collar. It’s raised, too. He can see it--lumpy, ropey--under the fabric of the tank top.

“What are you doing here, Harrington?” Billy finally asks, interrupting what Steve realizes was a _super_ rude once-over. His voice is raspy, like he doesn’t use it much except for yelling. 

“You can walk?” is what Steve says. “I thought you were like, confined to your bed.”

Billy looks away, for a moment. It’s the weirdest thing Steve’s seen. Steve has never, not _once_, seen Billy look away for anything other than emphasis. “I’m not,” is all he says, and there’s a long pause before he looks back at Steve.

He’s apparently waiting for Steve to answer the question. “I’m, uh, staying with you?” Steve asks.

Billy’s face does something, just a little, that looks--surprised? It’s an honest emotion, and it’s gone in a _second_, which is--weird. It’s good to know, maybe, that Billy can do emotion. “What?” Billy says. Then, when Steve doesn’t answer. “Why?”

Steve blinks. “They--they went to California?” he says. “For two weeks?” he adds. “They told you?” he finishes, and he wishes that everything he said weren’t a question.

The next look on Billy’s face--and Steve only sees it because he’s like, _studying_ Billy, apparently--is so hurt, so raw, that Steve thinks he might have preferred the vacant expression to stay. Billy doesn’t say anything. He shutters the look almost as quickly as it had appeared. He turns around and walks away. He slams the bedroom door shut so hard the windows in the living room rattle. 

Steve doesn’t go back to sleep. How could he? It’s nearly four in the morning, anyway, and he’s no stranger to this hour of the day, so he smokes a cigarette, cleans up a beer, and then vacuums the whole place--except Billy’s room--from top to bottom. It’s not like he has to worry about waking Billy up.

~

Two days of awkward silence, zero interaction, and Steve leaving like, eggo waffles and chicken nuggets outside of Billy’s room later, the heat index hits 110 degrees at eleven in the morning, and Steve just can’t be in this goddamn house anymore.

He could just leave, probably, but that feels _terrible_, given that Susan has _paid_ him to watch the child they’ve clearly abandoned, without warning. Steve takes a deep breath and prepares for a long, extended version of step four as he walks up to Billy’s bedroom door and starts to pound his fist against it.

It actually doesn’t take that long. Three minutes in, Billy yanks the door open, and Steve nearly hits him in the mouth. He stops at the last second, though, which he’s grateful for, because he doesn’t _actually_ want to hurt Billy.

He bites his lip and stares at him, uncertain, uneasy, and then says, “Listen,” right as Billy says, “Fuck off.”

Steve runs a hand through his hair. It’s sweaty. He’s gross. Everything is gross. “Get your shit,” Steve says. “We’re going to my house.”

Billy stares at him. “Fuck off and die,” he says.

“That’s so rude,” Steve tells him. “Considering we all almost did, together.”

“You hit my car.”

“You were going to hit _my kids_\--”

“_Your_ kids?”

“You know what I mean! Just get your _fucking_ stuff! I have air conditioning and a _pool_, Hargrove. I can’t _live like this_.”

Steve privately also thinks that Billy can’t live like this. He’s not sure if he’s imaging that Billy looks thinner or that he actually does, but he doesn’t think it’s possible for a person to survive on eggos and chicken nuggets alone, when the only walk they take is apparently to go piss in the middle of the night while Steve sleeps.

Billy answered the door. However he acts, Steve thinks that might mean he wants someone to help him out of whatever this is. At least, that’s what Steve _hopes_.

He’s right, anyway. Twenty minutes later, Billy’s in a long sleeved t-shirt, a hoodie, and a different pair of black sweatpants, sitting in the passenger’s side of the BMW. He’s got sunglasses on and the hood up. It is, Steve thinks, one hundred twenty degrees in the car, but if Billy’s too hot, he’s not saying anything about it.

“I feel like I’m driving with a celebrity,” Steve says, “All incognito,” and he’s trying to make a joke, to lighten the mood.

Only, Billy says, “Nah, just the town serial killer,” and keeps staring out the window, so the mood actually becomes considerably heavier, in Steve’s opinion. He doesn’t try and make a joke again.

When they get to the house, Steve is so sticky and miserable that he’s actually just _fantasizing_ about jumping in the pool, so he shuts the door and walks around back, not even going through the house to get there. He strips as he goes, down to his briefs, and then dives right into the deep end. The relief is instantaneous, from the heat, the sweat, the oppressive humidity.

He pops out of the water and throws his hair back like a mermaid, then swims to the edge of the pool. “Hey,” he says, because Billy finally rounds the corner, then. “You coming in?”

“No,” Billy answers, and he drops down in a lounger in the sun, wearing his sunglasses, black hoodie, and black sweatpants.

Steve blinks at him. “Uh, okay?” he tries, because he doesn’t want to _pressure_ Billy, but he also doesn’t want him to die of heat stroke, or something?

It has become clear, on the walk to the car, and the walk just now, that Billy’s not as healed up as Steve thought he was the night he first saw him. He walks slowly, stiffly, a little like it hurts, his shoulders hunched. It’s a hip thing, maybe, or a back thing? Steve’s not sure, but he’d walked like all of him hurt, not just a knee or an ankle or something.

Steve swims for a little while, but finds himself back at the edge of the pool. “Have you seen a doctor about--stuff?” he asks.

Billy, who Steve had thought might be asleep, tips his head in Steve’s direction. “Yeah,” he says.

It’s--a promising start, honestly. It’s almost like an actual conversation. “What’d they say?”

Billy blinks at him. “Why do you _care_?”

“Because that looks like it hurts? You shouldn’t be in that kind of like, pain?”

Billy snorts. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Because...no one deserves to live in total pain when we have like, modern medicine?”

Billy snorts again. “I’m alive, aren’t I? More than I can say for a third of the goddamn town.”

It’s the second time Billy has brought up that he’s some sort of killer. Steve disagrees with that on a pretty fundamental level, both having seen the impact of the monsters on other humans in his life, and on having seen Billy fight that thing off, on his own, to save Eleven. Steve doesn’t feel like this is the kind of thing he can unpack right now, though, so he lets it go. He settles on, “Why don’t you come in the pool with me?” instead.

“Why would I fucking do that?”

“Because it’s hot out,” Steve says. “And you must be _melti--_uh, _drowning_ in sweat, right now? Plus, I think like, for--injuries? Isn’t water supposed to be good or something?”

Billy glances at him. He lets Steve’s slip of the tongue go. “No,” he says.

Steve groans. “Man, why _not_?”

Billy stares at him and Steve waits for Billy to say something biting, something mean, something _nasty_, because that’s what Billy has always done any time Steve has ever asked a question, from the moment he rolled up in his tight jeans and his loud car, but Billy says, slow, his voice raw in a different way, “Because I don’t want you to see me, Harrington,” and it’s soft, a little nervous.

Steve stares at him, and Billy looks away. Billy says, “Nevermind,” low and quiet.

“No, hey,” Steve says quickly. “Don’t--it’s fine. Look, I don’t care what you look like?”

“Sure, until you see the way I look,” Billy mutters.

Steve shakes his head. “No, Hargrove, _listen_,” Steve says. “I don’t care? Like, listen. I’ve been around this shit before. A _bunch_. I’ll tell you about it sometime, if you want, but--none of what you look like? Is going to be worse than what you’ve seen. None--_none_ of what that thing made you do? Is worse than the shit _I_ did.”

“You killed people?” Billy asks, and it’s bitter.

Steve thinks of Barb. He swallows. “Yeah,” he answers, quiet and low. “Only, it was me that caused it. I didn’t--nothing else was in my head to force me to do it.” A muscle in Billy’s jaw ticks. Steve runs a wet hand through his wetter hair. “Billy,” he says softly, “You’re only gonna feel better if you start trying to live again. Trust me.”

He and Nancy had tried wallowing, had tried faking it. It was only when they’d both stepped back into their real lives, not the ones they’d constructed to pretend the death they shared didn’t matter, that they’d--lived, a little, for real. That they’d grieved and healed. Mostly. Separate, but. They’d healed. “Come in the pool, Billy,” Steve says. 

It happens slowly. Billy stands up and takes the sunglasses off. His eyes are so blue that the pool water and sky might feel embarrassed, and Steve can’t stop that thought before he has it. The sweatpants go next. Billy has basketball shorts on underneath. His legs are thin and pale, which is weird. Steve’s spent a lot of time in the showers and practice, stealing glances at Billy’s legs. He’s never thought of them as pale.

The hoodie, next, and finally the shirt.

Steve does his best to keep his face neutral, but the scarring is--it’s jarring. It’s ugly. It’s _mean_, but then, that’s what that monster was. It’s left its imprint on Billy’s body, and sometimes when Steve thinks of Barb he feels sick, but Billy’s never going to look at himself and not think of that thing inside his head.

Billy is slow, coming to the pool. He moves slowly and stiffly, his steps awkward. He lowers himself down to sit on the edge of it, and Steve watches him hiss in pain before he’s finally sitting. He kicks his legs under the water, and then, slowly, carefully, he sinks into it.

He stays under for long enough that Steve gets worried, but then he pops back up, and he looks--lighter, but maybe also sadder.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Billy blurts out. “I didn’t fucking _want_ to.”

“I know,” Steve offers. “It wasn’t you, Billy, who did it. It wasn’t you.”

Billy looks away like he doesn’t quite believe Steve, but Steve knows that kind of understanding takes time to dawn. For now, at least, he’s got Billy in the pool. For now, at least, they’re swimming around.

After, they smoke a joint and lie out under the stars, and Steve tells Billy about Barb, and about the tunnels, and about the Russian’s hand in his hair, fist in his face, and Billy tells him about a pressure at his temples, feeling like a hand was always around his throat, about the burn of chlorine in his stomach.

They fall asleep like that, next to each other, hands nearly touching. If it’s the start of something (and it is) Steve doesn’t know it, then.

~

Step one: knock on the door.

Step two: Max answers, grinning and tan, a week back from California and she seems committed to living in the sun.

Step three: She shouts “Billy!” over her shoulder.

Step four: Billy appears behind her. He still moves slowly, a little stiffly. He’s wearing a long sleeved t-shirt, but it’s a bright green, and it makes his eyes pop. He’s pushed the sleeves up, a little. He’s got more color in his face, now, a healthier red, he looks less sickly, even if he moves stiff, even if he ducks most people’s gazes.

Most people’s, because he doesn’t duck Steve’s.

Step five: Billy leaves the house and settles behind the wheel of Steve’s car.

“Am I even going to like this?” Billy asks him. “Is this fucking--country hillbilly music?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You’re going to like it,” he promises. “Plus, we’ll be able to drink beer all we want, and then we’re gonna camp. It’s _fun_, I promise.”

“This sounds like some hillbilly shit,” Billy says, but he still gets on the highway and drives them the three hours to the event that Jonathan heard about from a friend of a friend.

It’s good to see Billy out of the house, Steve thinks. It’s been happening more and more. After the pool, they had gone for ice cream--Steve had whispered in Billy’s ear about the _poor scoop technique_ the employee had--and then they’d gone to the quarry. They’d seen a movie. They’d made dinner together. They’d stayed at Steve’s mostly, because of the air conditioning and the pool, and they’d listened to a lot of music.

It had been a good two weeks. Steve thinks that maybe they’re the two people who went on vacation instead of Billy’s family.

It’s nearly sunset, and they’re standing near the stage, and the music is so loud that Steve can feel it in his chest. Billy’s hand brushes his, and Steve doesn’t really even think about it, doesn’t hesitate to grab it, to squeeze, and then to let go because they have an audience around them.

Usually, Steve hates when the summer ends. He’s not sad to see this one go. It feels, as the music plays, as Billy’s shoulder bumps against his, as they share a cigarette, like the start of something.

Steve grins.

Step six, he thinks: to be determined.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Orange" by Wendy Cope. I'm on tumblr as @lymricks, too.


End file.
